


Writing on a Bathroom Wall

by Ikebana



Series: Vignettes [3]
Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ikebana/pseuds/Ikebana
Summary: Snippets of time captured on the walls of a bathroom stall
Series: Vignettes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018675





	1. Chapter 1

The phrase was right there, scrawled on the tiles with Sharpie and naïve pride. It wasn’t the only scribble on the walls, phrases like “Nora Willborough sucked James Whiting’s dick!” and “call me for a good time xxx 04-3365-7199 ♥” common to see, scrawled in anything from biro to knife scratches. Arbitrary scrawlings from faceless predecessors, vandalising the inside of the cubicle in some vain hope of leaving their mark on the world. Counting every mark would’ve been useless, adding up to the hundreds if every tiny scratch was a tally on a scoreboard, but there was only one important enough to remember, written in a clean, adolescent hand:

“I’ll speak the truth even if my voice shakes”.

It’s time for my voice to shake too.


	2. Chapter 2

“Goddammit I tried, goddammit I loved”

Never a more compelling and perplexing phrase to see on the laminated wood of a public  
toilet door, deep grooves scratched in determined biro and a neat hand. It had been there  
long enough that all of the ink had rubbed off; the only chance at legibility was if one’s head  
was tipped at just the right angle to catch the light on the grooves, then swivelled around to  
decipher the words. It would seem like too much bother to read a single sentence, but its  
place of honour in the middle of the door, isolated from all others, was too intriguing to be left  
unread. None of the other surfaces of the cubicle showed evidence of the same  
simultaneously calm yet desperate handiwork, so it could only be assumed that its creator  
had since moved on. Curiously, no other vandal before or since had dared blemish the  
canvas this phrase found itself the star of, despite them jockeying for space on every other  
wall - and on one memorable tile - the floor.

It would be natural to guess at the meaning and intention behind the words, but it would be  
pointless.

Why should an author question the words they carved into a bathroom door?


	3. Chapter 3

Barely a square centimetre of grey plastic was visible between the collage of various  
stickers, decals, apple stickers and other assorted graffiti plastered to the walls of the toilet  
stall. Many were odd, created purely to plaster fragments of personality wherever possible.  
Others, layers of fruit stickers: naval oranges, nashi pears, pink lady apples and cavendish  
bananas, the occasional red seedless grape too. A previous patron of the porcelain had  
lovingly weaved some of the fruit stickers into a school of fish, each scale another sticker.  
The adornment wasn’t constrained to just stickers either; there were many scratches and  
scribbles, tucked under stickers, on top of others, warping the plastics and adhesives as they  
carved their marks in layers of time.

One mark in particular stood out, the most recent addition, or just the least altered. Large,  
brash lettering, scrawled with no regard for the history of the space it occupied, in a single  
sentence:

“Lead me not into temptation, for I know the way”.


End file.
